There Is a Lake Here
By Clint SmithThere is a lake here.
A lake the size of
outstretched arms. And no,
not the type of arms raised
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Grease & Salt
By Jeanann VerleeI finish a small hot plate of grease & salt, & push the scraped-clean plate across the counter for someone else to scrub / this, I say I have paid for but it doesn't fit
Song of the Exiles
By Holly KarapetkovaThere never was a garden
only a leaving:
miles and miles
of footprints in the dirt.
Pennsylvania ave SE
By Taylor JohnsonBless the boys riding their bikes straight up, at midnight, touching,
if only briefly, holding, hands as they cross the light to Independence.
Bless them for from the side the one on the red bike looks like me
his redbrown hair loose against the late summer static heat.
Standing Rock, Part I
By Veronica GolosHave I stepped back in time, or forward?
A graveled road, hovering flags, the sound
of waves against chunk rock -- and
voices billow into birds,
THE MOTEL CLERK’S SON DRIVES OUT TO CHECK ON BUSINESS, 1977
By Allison Pitinii DavisBefore him, stickers fade across the bumper:
LAST ONE OUT OF TOWN, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS.
The last employer in Youngstown is the weather:
the truck behind him plows grey snow to the roadside
2001 Mill Road, Alexandria, VA
By Marcos L. MartínezThere are immeasurable ways to count days: on the median the sunflower tracks UV streams: east to west then sleep; an acorn gets weeded out of the common area ‘til another live oak drobs a bomb then sprouts till, yanked away again;
Iraqi-Style Fish Shop, Damascus
By Heather Derr-SmithThe fish are opened up like salad bowls,
Slid between the metal bars of baskets,
Roasted in the wood-fired ovens, Iraqi style.
The flesh glows as if it were made of glass.
Attribution
By Jee Leong KohMy grandfather said life was better under the British.
He was a man who begrudged his words but he did say this.
I was born after the British left
an alphabet in my house, the same book they left in school.
Above the Thin Shell of the World
By Marci Calabretta Cancio-BelloI fell in love with a North Korean
by falling asleep on his shoulder
in a South Korean subway.